DiTommaso: Looking at gun “control”

Saturday

Mar 23, 2013 at 6:00 AM

Blaise DiTommaso Guest Column

Editor’s note: This is part one of a two-part look at gun control by Boylston resident Blaise DiTommaso.

How do we protect innocent school children, movie-goers, mall shoppers, etc., from killer cowards and still uphold the Second Amendment of the Constitution? Basically, how do we allow people to own machine guns yet keep those guns from killing needlessly?

On Dec. 15, 1791, as part of the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution, the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” was adopted. It is important to note that the intention of the time was/is to keep our own government from having the advantage over an unarmed population.

Just as “freedom of speech” doesn’t allow anyone to shout fire in a crowded theater, or to libel or verbally abuse someone, our right to possess and carry firearms does not imply the unlimited or unrestricted privilege to own and shoot weapons of mass murder.

So some paranoid, doomsday, over-compensator wants 100 guns that can blast 100 bullets per second – or whatever. Let him.

Banning assault rifles or large-capacity ammunition clips isn’t quite the answer. How would the NRA poster child look all dressed in fatigues, mouthing a $20 cigar, leaning up against a Hummer and looking all rough and tough and Terminator-like without an assault rifle? I personally think the attraction to this type of superficial inflato-ego is a huge part of the underlying problem.

But here’s why I put “control” in quotes in the title:

Let this same action figure wannabe also pay for that risk and responsibility – just like a car owner. Let him pay for an alarmed safe in their home that alerts the local or state police when it opens. Let him pay insurance equal to one life per bullet for every bullet they own. Let him pay for a tamper-proof GPS tracking device imbedded in the gun stock that alerts whatever alarm monitoring station of any unauthorized gun movement. Let him pay a proportional excise tax, like cars, and a differential tax, where a shotgun (hunting weapon) is considered less dangerous than an automatic rifle or a handgun (pure killing weapons). Let him pay for and undergo a yearly safety inspection.

The same way we register and insure cars, we should require at least the same for guns. Actually, I just thought of this: Can anyone own and drive a “loaded” tank down Main Street? Maybe the NRA, instead of greasing palms of millionaire lawmakers, can fund a national Gun Registry (like the RMV) and an insurance agency to ensure that their camo-clad cousins get their guns. OK, I wear camo, too.

Don’t be fooled. This would handle the mostly law-abiding gun owners and control the location of those guns. But what about criminals? Let’s not overlook the fact that these mall and school shooters weren’t criminals. Criminals, cowards of their own category, are a connected, yet separate, issue.

We need zero-tolerance gun laws with swift and mandatory sentencing to deter law breakers. No alarmed safe would be one year in prison. Unregistered, unlicensed or uninsured possession of a handgun would be five years. GPS tampering would be 25 years. Just pointing a handgun at someone would be 50 years. Shooting it would be life in prison. All of these automatic and without parole. Sorry.

There is more to this story, but you’ll have to wait until the next time. I’m over my one-page limit on a very complicated and heated topic.

Blaise DiTommasois a Boylston resident and occasional contributor to The Banner.